THERE’S something of a revolution going on in Northern Irish coffee shops.
Nowadays it seems that if you’re to open a successful café, it has to be run by someone who is also a professional athlete, as has been the case for two of the most recent stores to appear on the scene.
Guilt Trip, on Orangefield Lane in east Belfast, is jointly run by Ulster Rugby players Callum Black and Darren Cave, while Bangor’s latest eatery is Cargo Coffee, where Belfast Giants forward Matt Towe is involved.
The English skater now lives in Belfast with his wife Claire and is in his third season with the Giants, and has started to lay down roots with the creation of an idea that first reared his head nearly 18 months ago.
A unique concept, Cargo Coffee is a drive thru coffee shop that operates out of several repurposed shipping containers on the Belfast Road, with business booming since its opening this day last week.
“It’s going good!” Towe smiles. “It’s been a long time in coming so it’s good to finally get it off the ground now. It’s also great to get all the support from the boys and the Giants fans, it means a lot to me.
“We all like our coffee and it’s going down well with the lads. It’s only going to help us grow, and I love it in Belfast so it’ll only help me set up shop here.
“Ours is a drive thru concept so it’s a bit of a niche market at the moment and hopefully it can do well.”
With Cargo Coffee off to a very positive start, it’s very much mirroring the Giants’ form in the Elite League as they continue on their mammoth run of away games in the lead up to Christmas.
Last week’s wins at Manchester and Sheffield took the Giants to 5-1 for the road trip and back to the summit of the league standings, albeit having played several more games than their rivals around them.
Still, with a remarkable 21 games to be played at the SSE Arena post-Christmas, there’s definitely cause for Adam Keefe and his side to be optimistic if they can emerge in January within touching distance of the likes of Nottingham and Cardiff.
Not that there’s no optimism right now, as Towe explains, with their bounceback from an incredibly off-colour performance in Guildford a week previous something they’re particularly happy with.
“After that loss in Guildford it was tough for a few days, that one hurt, but to rebound like that and get the four points in Sheffield - where we played really well for 60 minutes - and the night before, Manchester is a tough place to go, so to get the points there was great too.
“It’s good to enjoy that for the week, you come in and there’s a lot of laughs and smiles about the place, but now it’s back to work.”
Back to work starts in Fife tomorrow night with a trip to the Flyers in the first leg of their Challenge Cup quarter-final before travelling south to Nottingham for an Elite League clash at the National Ice Centre.
While the Sunday game against the Panthers is arguably the bigger game given it’s a meeting of the top two in the league, attention is firmly on their knockout tie in Scotland first.
Having already done the double over Todd Dutiame’s side in their Challenge Cup group, confidence will be high in the Belfast camp that they can take a positive result back for the second leg in January, something Towe says they’re aiming for.
“Fife’s always a tough place to go and they’ve had a great start, they have a few games in hand so they could be right up there in the league,” Towe enthuses.
“They don’t have as many bodies as us but the bodies they do have are really good so we have to go in there and respect them but also play our style of hockey.
“We’re going out to win every game, we’re not going to go there and be passive and come back with a draw and be pleased with that, we want to come back winning the tie.”
- CARGO COFFEE is now open at 16 Belfast Road, Bangor on weekdays from 7am to 4pm and Saturdays from 8am to 3pm
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